Deaf
by glanmire
Summary: Óin is nearly deaf when he doesn't have his ear-trumpet in, but he doesn't mind, not really.


He awoke to darkness. They were staying in a small cave to shelter themselves from the brutal elements outside. It was severely lacking in space, yet was much preferable to the open air, tonight at least.

It had been Nori's job to quench their fire, yet when Óin woke he knew something was amiss.

The air was black and for one desperate second Óin thought that he was blind as well as deaf, but then he breathed in and felt it burn the whole way down his throat and into his lungs, and he coughed, panicked, and realised that smoke engulfed the Company.

Calming himself, he let out a roar, rousing the others. He fumbled around in the darkness and smoke, kicking and shaking and shouting as loud as he could, waking the fools who slept on, choking in their sleep.

If there were enemies nearby, they would be upon the Company in moments with the racket that Óin was making, not that he could hear it himself, but there was nothing to be done for it.

Thorin woke first and understood instantly what was happening, and managed to lead the others out of the cave. Óin grabbed everything within reach and dragged it out after them, breathing heavily.

They gathered on a patch of grass. It was still raining, and Óin's thick furs began to get heavy with water. The dwarves lay flat on the grass, paying no heed to how drenched it was, and let themselves get their breath back, many still coughing.

It was a few minutes later when Thorin touched his shoulder. Óin turned, and automatically pressed his ear-trumpet into place, the metal not yet cool.

"My thanks", Thorin said, his voice thunderous, suddenly striking through the usual silence. "You saved all our lives tonight."

Óin waved his free hand, as if wiping the compliment away.

"We'd better go fetch the rest of the belonging I suppose", he said, and left it at that.

Their gear reeked of smoke for the next week, and everything was damp and miserable, yet there was some consolation in that they were alive.

Óin was in fact, mostly deaf. He hadn't always been that way, but he had his ear-trumpet now, and that was useful, it had its place at times.

He would put it in his ear and the world would come alive again, like he had emerged from underwater; noises telling details, sounds relaying information, overwhelming him.

But for the most part, he was better off without the damned thing.

He most certainly didn't need to hear Thorin wax lyrical about Erebor one more time, or listen to Glóin's misty-eyed rants about his lad Gimli, who was Óin's brother-son, for Mahal's sake. He knew everything there was to know about the boy at this stage.

At times like those, near-deafness was a blessing.

Óin just took his ear-trumpet out of his ear, and drifted away in his own mind peacefully to the other dwarves' envy. They did not have such handy manners of escaping a dreaded conversation with Thorin Oakenshield about the mines of old.

Óin's next attempt at saving the group some pain came a week or so later, yet this time they rebuked his efforts.

He was skinning potatoes when Bilbo appeared, grinning. Óin ignored him and kept peeling.

The skins fell off in a pile of crescent cuts on his lap, and he was immersed in his work until Bombur touched his shoulder to get his attention.

His mouth began moving, but Óin only heard murmurs.

"Hold on, hold on a moment", he muttered and went to fetch the damnable ear-trumpet, then returned to the group.

"What?" he asked, and Bilbo showed him the assortment of mushrooms he had gathered. They were white with splashes of orange.

Óin glanced at them briefly. "They're bad."

Bilbo looked at him, confused. "No they're not, look, not gone soft at all."

"I didn't mean bad like rotten. I mean that they'll make you ill."

Bilbo looked at Óin like he had suddenly sprouted a second head, and an ugly one at that.

"No they won't, these are foxtail mushrooms, I have them all the time-"

Óin returned to his potatoes without wasting anymore time. The hobbit looked infuriated, but Óin promptly took out his ear-trumpet so that he could not argue further. He despised petty conflicts.

It turned out they were both right. Bilbo ate a hearty portion of the mushrooms that night, and egged on by his lack of reaction to them, some of the more adventurous dwarves followed suit.

Hobbit stomachs turned out to be well-accustomed to foxtail mushrooms, dwarven ones not so much. Kili, Fili and Bombur spent the night spewing the insides of their stomachs onto the forest floor.

Óin was glad he didn't have his ear-trumpet in then. He slept better without listening to their dry heaving and retching, thank you very much.

To be frank, the only time Óin resented being nearly deaf was when he felt it made him weak, because he knew that wasn't true. He wasn't useless. In the very least, he was the closest they had to a healer, though admittedly he wasn't much good at that.

Nevertheless, most nights after dinner was finished and the fire was being tended to, some dwarf or even the hobbit would make their way over to Óin and ask him to take a look their various injuries.

He would look to Gandalf, and the wizard would shrug, as if to say, I won't be here forever, you'd best learn to cope.

And so he would spend his evenings, running a hand over a swollen knee, a twisted ankle, and deciding how bad the damage was and how to treat it. He'd take out the ear-trumpet after they'd told him what was ailing them, because he needed two hands to clean cuts and wrap knees, and besides, it was an advantage not to hear at those times, because all you'd get would be an earful of complaints about how painful it was. He was much better off, truly.

Being near deaf wasn't too bad.

Sometimes though, he wanted to hear.

When they were huddled around Bilbo's fire, a distant memory now, he had put in his ear-trumpet and listened, and the music of his people grabbed him and shook his core.

"The pines were roaring" Thorin had sang, and Óin had thought to himself that the trees had seemed quiet to him, but then, so was everything else.

At that dinner, he had put the damned thing in just to keep up with what was going on, and the sheer level of noise assaulted him; the dwarves were loud, painfully loud, yet enjoyable. He had liked that night, but that was the deviation.

Most nights though, he left the ear-trumpet out and kept his own company. He was better off.


End file.
